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100K Week

I did my usual 20K run this morning. It was a good one. First of all, it was simply a very good long barefoot run, at an LSD pace. Secondly, today’s distance made for a total of 100K this week – a nice round number, and one that I’m pleased with. I don’t think I’ve ever run that far in one week, shod or unshod. Even when I’ve run ultras or marathons, I’ve reduced my distance significantly in the week before the race itself. This week, I ran every day, and that brought me to 100K.

It was my kind of weather today, as it’s been for most of the week. The temperature when I started out at 8:30 AM was 21C. The temperature when I finished was 24C – and felt like 31C. I sweat a lot, and that was reflected in my weight before and after the run. Pre-run, I weighed in at 153.6 lbs., and post-run at 150 lbs. That was all fluid loss, so my weight had returned to 154 by mid-afternoon.

This business of running daily (though without any sense of real training) has had all kinds of benefits. There’s my weight, for one thing. At the beginning of December 2010, I weighed 168 lbs. I’m now 14 lbs. lighter, without having made any changes to my diet. I’m reasonably fit, obviously. I’m really nicely tanned, because I run every day, and run shirtless whenever I can. Running on a daily basis keeps me calm and relaxed, and makes me more pleasant to be with. I’m figuring out some of the larger and deeper background psychological and philosophical issues that have bothered me for a very long time. And, without a doubt, I’m a better runner than I used to be.

That’s the last long run I’ll do for a while. I’m doing the Downtown Dash 10K race on Thursday evening, so I’ll do my commute runs tomorrow and Tuesday, then take Wednesday and most of Thursday off from running. By the following week, though, I’ll be back at building up my weekly distance. I’m looking forward to that.